Hillary

As many of you, especially long-time readers, know, I consider myself a middle-of-the-road Liberal, bordering on Libertarian. I’m a constitutionalist, and in some ways a statist, and in others a federalist. And I know full well that I can’t please everyone. So be it. Don’t like my political views? Go fuck yaself with a garden rake. I ain’t here to suck your dick and pat you on the head.

I am absolutely sick to fuck of hearing about Hillary Clinton.

Gun control is just one of the many ways I detest her. But it’s a big one. She has self-admittedly visited nations that have STRICT gun control, but much higher gun homicide rates than ours. And yet… Nope, she panders to the grabber audience.

Lest anyone think I’m a misogynist for hating Hillary, there are plenty of women I would love to see as the first female president of the USA. Elizabeth Warren, for instance. Or Susana Martinez. Or fuck, gimme Flo from Progressive Insurance. I don’t care. Just please, please, I don’t want President Hillary. She’s a fucking aristocratic cunt with no clue as to what entails our lives as working schmoes. She’s a high-dollar fruitbag, almost as offensive to my nose as Palin. Please, please, anyone but her.

If she runs, and she ends up against some Tea Party loon like Rand Paul, I’d hold my nose and vote for her on the basis that she’d at least try to fix actual problems, or at least throw my vote into some appealing third-party candidate.

I suspect that if she does run, she’s going to end up as the lesser of two evils.

You think she would try to fix any actual problems? That’s really adorable.
Newsflash, politicians have exactly two agendas:
1. Paying back their backers
2. Placating their supporters by taking a stance on unimportant issues that media blew out of proportion

She’s a Democrat, so she’d attempt to go after something that is generally agreed to be an actual problem, then either get outmaneuvered and get nothing done or opt for an unneeded compromise and pass a bill that, while minor, is at least technically an improvement. That’s how that party works when its members get to sit in the big chair.

Compare her to the cartoon characters who she’d be running against and I’d much rather have that. Unless an Eisenhower Republican shows up out of nowhere or Warren goes back on what she’s been saying and runs, that’s what we’re stuck with right now. If it’s not Hillary, then I assume it’ll be one of the Castros or Cory Booker.

I can see where gun advocates would think she’s ridiculous, but compared to some of the Heritage Foundation puppet shows who are warming up for a run, she’s the Pope of Common Sense. Like I said, lesser of two evils.

‘Course, this is predicated upon the assumption that she’s just being coy right now and Benghazi did not actually pummel the desire to be President clean out of her.

Warren is an amazingly, singularly bad, pick for anything above school crossing guard.
Here is Ms. “I’m-a-native-american-becawz-I-said-so” warren’s stance on guns.http://www.ontheissues.org/domestic/Elizabeth_Warren_Gun_Control.htm
Grant, do you do ANY research at all? Yea, she’s a great pick…… yet another another liberal socialist meat puppet.

While your point may be valid, comparing gun death rates in Mexico is hardly a fair comparison. Why not Canada? Or Australia? The Mexican government and police force is notoriously corrupt and we all know it.

Well, Canada, for instance, had a lower homicide rate (and lower gun homicide rate) than the US even when Canadian gun laws either were the same OR WERE MORE GUN FRIENDLY than the US (the same holds true for the UK.

When similar communities between Canada and the US are compared, the Canadian homicide (and gun homicide) rates are effectively the same.

Frankly, the overwhelming majority of US homicides (and gun homicides) are found in a VERY small population with unbelieveably high rates per capita, which distorts the whole picture nationally. (And these populations are, by and large, located in areas that have fairly strict gun control. Yes, a disproportionate rate of this population is made up of minorities, but the statistically significant factors are socioeconomic and _cultural_ — if you’re a poor urban teenager from a high crime area who is part of an “honor” culture where “face” is important, your odds of ending up on one end of the muzzle or the other are roughly the same, regardless of skin color.)

It’s fun to speak authoritatively, so it sounds like you’re citing something, without actually having to cite anything, isn’t it? Not even being sarcastic, the Master’s thesis I got approved last week did a lot more asserting than citing. But then, I was writing on an emergent field with hardly any prior research. And sadly, despite the NRA’s best efforts to block any public research into gun violence, there is research on this topic, and the research shows a clear link between the strictness of gun control laws and the rate of gun violence. Spoilers, the stricter the laws, the fewer people are killed with guns, by a factor of as high as six. And the rates of non-gun violence don’t increase to compensate, either – turns out you just get less violence when guns aren’t so readily available.

As is oft-pointed out (ansd also ignored by the ones who need the lesson), those places with the low crime/murder rates and strict gun control? Yeah, they generally had far lower crime/murder rates BEFORE they adopted the “strict gun control”. So, no net change.

I think you’re missing the point. The claim that “strict gun control doesn’t guarantee anything” is demonstrably false – there’s no difference between lax gun control and technically-strict-but-unenforced gun control, but actually strict gun control dramatically and provably lowers the rate of violent crime.

Can you provide examples of this? I don’t need every statistic, I’d be content with a pointer in the right direction, like “look at the city/country of [X] where gun control was enacted in 19[whatever] and crime plummeted”. I’m unaware of any example to back up your claim, and I’m genuinely curious.

Now, there’s plenty of evidence that strong enforcement of existing laws dramatically lowers the rate of violent crime (eg Project Exile or “broken window” policing) but I presume this isn’t what you mean.

Conclusions and Relevance, sentence 2, “As our study could not determine cause-and-effect relationships, further studies are necessary to define the nature of this association.”
Add to that, the major (only?) source of data was the Brady Center, and I tend to discount your conclusion.

Yeah…in addition to the genius behind your “proof” study citing the Brady campaign, they also failed to check the CDC stats they used. 30,000 gun deaths was cited from there several times but they failed to note that almost 20,000 of those were suicides and studies in Japan and the UK have determined that banning firarms has a negligible effect on suicide rates. It just changes the method. Statistics….the art of manipulating numbers to tell your own lies.

They included suicide as “violence”.
“STUDY POPULATION
We identified all violence-related firearm fatalities between January 2007 and December 2010, and used data on age-adjusted firearm mortality, including suicides (60.9% of firearm-related fatalities) and homicides (39.1% of firearm-related fatalities).”

If they were to omit that, as the legitimate choice of any sapient being, the entire study alters significantly.

The overall message I took away from the first article was that reducing the lethality of suicide means(IE removing shotguns, etc) decreases the suicide rate simply by increasing the survival rate of suicide attempts.

So… people who WANT to be dead can’t be?
I’m not sure that’s an improvement, but I have to say that if an infant can crawl under the kitchen sink and manage to drink enough drano to kill itself, an adult should be FAR more capable of carrying out the same act…

Best info I could find (from the gov) for Australia said that the homicide rate for 2007 was 1.3 per 100K which was the lowest it had ever been where it had risen shortly after 1996 (start of our gun laws) from 1.9 (including the 35 in port arthur) to 2 per 100K in 1999.
It may be lower over here but knife use has gone up, most likely creating more casualties than deaths compared to when firearms were easier to get.

Warren supports patently unconstitutional feature bans (AR15 and magazines up to 30-40 rounds clearly meet the common use test described in Heller), she supports monkeying with background checks, and she supports allowing unrestricted access to various federal record sources of data on privately held guns. Given her position, its fairly clear that the intent is to create a registry; history has conclusively proven that the only purpose of registries is to facilitate theft of firearms (either by government, or criminals as a result of poor government security.0.

Maybe you should, since once you lose the Second Amendment there go all the other issues as well.If you can’t back up the first or the fourth amendment for example with the threat to do violence towards the government there is no point.

Faux-cahontas!?! There’s no way I could vote for her, unless perhaps she was running against a Hitler/Stalin ticket. With the fake Native American claims, she should have no business in any public office, but leave it to the idiots in Massachusetts to elect a proven liar.

“While your point may be valid, comparing gun death rates in Mexico is hardly a fair comparison”
To counter HC’s point about the “Rule of Law” it is a very fair comparison. Both of the examples adeptly counter HC’s position that we (The US conjoined with legal gun owners) are to be feared for the *pontential” of what occurs in other countries.
This old fart see’s the issue with HC and the others as a matter of trust. Warren, HC, nor most of the probable DNC Presidential candidates have even a modicum of trust in gun owners that follow the law and encourage others to do the same.
Simply, if you own a gun they see you as a threat to thier future view of the US. Gun owner = Bad guy.

Ok, so people want a politician who will actually do the job, and fix things. How about someone who got elected the Republican governor of a predominantly-Democratic state; who balanced that state’s budget; fixed a bunch of issues; and got term-limited out, with a high-enough approval rating that, absent the term limits, he could have gotten re-elected. Then, he climbed Mt Everest.

I voted for Gary Johnson in 2012, and will most likely vote for him again in 2016.

you may enjoy reading OweMalley’s responses here. he’s a lying sack of shit and the entire country’s going to find out when he runs for the presidency…and really, i can’t wait to see him run over with a virtual steamroller.

If you don’t vote for Hillary, you’re a misogynist. If you don’t agree with Hillary’s position on (insert cause here), you hate women. This is what we’ll hear from the Media and the Dem party faithful. How do I know this? Because everyone who currently opposes Obama is automatically considered a racist. Why change plays if it keeps working?

Obama, from “Yes we can” to “Maybe we could have,” via “striving to reach consensus” that consisted entirely of caving on every issue. He’s worked so hard to be Republican enough to get that “consensus” that his tenure compares to John McCain at the start of the primaries way back like Margaret Thatcher’s Tories compare to the French government.

“Hey, France. That place where all healthcare is socialised and it somehow costs them less per capita than we’re paying to bail out people who go bankrupt trying to pay their share of the costs in our all-private healthcare system. Sounds good. Let’s do that.” Somehow, that turned into: “Everyone must get private health insurance via this website, if it ever works, whether they can afford it or not, and if someone can’t afford it the rest of you will have to afford it for them.”

Did they even bother to block the thieves and liars at Blue Cross / Blue Shield from that system? “Yes, it does say on page 7 that you’re covered for that, but on page 23 after This page intentionally left blank in black it says: except for the following: you are not covered for any condition if the treatment for it would cost us more than one month’s premium in very pale yellow in 4-point font, and the treatment for which you’re claiming would be very expensive, so you’ll have to pay for it yourself … sucker.”

Most Republican president ever to have a (D) after his name and the one with the worst record on the budget and trade deficits ever yet?

I really don’t get what the comic is trying to say. Mexico and Brazil has a huge problem with smuggled guns. And brazil also has a problem with corrupt cops selling their guns to the population.

why not use the example of United kingdom, which has a gun homicide rate of .04 per 100k capita and just as restrictive gun laws, or more restrictive then Brazil ad Mexico. Or even australia, japan or china which has significantly fewer gun related homicides, and strict gun control laws

Strict gun control laws also have to follow hand in hand with preventing the smuggling and illegal sales of guns for them to work

Why not look at total homicide rates. If you can’t get a gun, you use something else. I think knife crime in both England and Japan make up for the lack of guns. There have been several mass knife attacks in Asia recently.
Also, most of the gun death statistics include suicide which is totally bogus.

Also, don’t forget that the UK (like most nations) only reports deaths as “homicides” when they have a CONVICTION. If they never get caught, or manage only to get convicted of a lesser offence, it is never counted as a homicide.

In the US, we count a death as a homicide when it looks like someone was offed by another person, even if we have no leads or suspects.

What were they BEFORE they got rid of guns. Has their homicide rate dropped at a greater rate than the US? Was there an increase in other methods of death? Increases in disappearances? People falling off cliffs with a boot print on their back?

I don’t remember Japan off the top of my head (and should be working, so I’m not going to spend time looking), but as I recall, knife homicides in Britain don’t even come close to making up for the lack of guns. In fact, knife homicides in Britain fall short of knife homicides in the US. We have more murders than most (all?) other developed countries both total and in every individual weapon category. This is exactly the problem, though: the US has cultural elements that are unusual in other developed countries, making international comparisons difficult. In terms of the natures of their gang and drug cultures, the US is closer to Mexico or Brazil than to the UK, Canada, Japan, or China. (I’m not sure about Australia; their drug use profile is pretty similar to the US’s, but I’m under the impression that they don’t have the same type of gang culture.)

One thing I DO remember about Japan is that the overall suicide rate blows the US out of the water, even while the gun suicide rate is practically nonexistent.

I’m not certain you’re correct about the gun death statistics including suicide; I’ve definitely seen ones that do not. The most-often quoted raw number, though (approx 33,000), absolutely does.

The UK, island nation that it is, has problems with gun smuggling as well. There’s been cases of people smuggling guns bought from the Czech Republic, other cases of people converting air pistols into firearms. And Australia, island nation as well, has peolp-e making Sten and Stirling machine guns. THey have stricter firearm control than the US.
But freedom for law-abiding citizens……fuckit, who needs that shit when we need to write more laws to punish criminals?

I’m sure that post ban the USA won’t have any gun smuggling problems like Brazil and mexico.

Right? Guys?

Just like we can’t buy drugs cause they’re illegal.

Right?

Why can’t gun control folks figure out that their efforts are totally futile and their fears not grounded in reality? Gun carry laws have been massively relaxed at the same time as gun violence rates are dropping.

Where are all of these wild-west shootouts that Hillary so fears?

Fact is, there is no net gain in restricting gun ownership to law abiding citizens. It accomplishes nothing. Get over it. Move on!

uk crime has increased since gun control measures where cranked in, so please, lets use that as an example for us gun laws. apples are not oranges. their crime rate was always far lower than ours. they do provide a good example of causitive effect however, from my
perspective.

Comparing us to Mexico is exactly the point. Private guns are restricted so most guns are smuggled in so the only people who have them are the exact people who shouldn’t (and contrary to media reports less than 20% come from the US). One problem with using the UK, Japan, or even Australia as examples….all saw a RISE in their crime rates (including gun crime) after implimentation of their firearms restrictions. They were historically low violence countries before restriction so they remain low violence countries now. The UK has large sections of their major cities where the gangs out gun the cops…so the cops just don’t go there. And…they are all islands which makes smuggling harder. We don’t have that luxury. If we restricted guns the way some people want we would be no better off than Mexico. Without turning ourselves into a police state, there would be no way to stop the flow.

Why don’t you alsolook at Czech republic and Switzerland. both heavilly armed andboth with a lower gun homicide rate than the Uk or America. See for any heavy gun control countries you choose with low crime I can find high gun ownership countries with low crime. So why don’t somebody use thier head and conclude that gun ownership levels has no impact on crime whatsoever.

What America needs is better mental health support. Not only for veterans with PTSD, but also for teens that have it hard. They have issues and frustrations growing up and as long as its taboo to talk about them, there will be incidents with weapons.
There is nothing wrong with owning a gun. You can buy a 15 inch knife in any shop, and a car can be a murder weapon too.

Again it comes down to: Guns don’t kill people; people kill people. And if they don’t have guns, they will use something else.

The problem is that gun control is a litmus test for the Democratic Party at the national level, just like being pro-life is for Republicans. Democrats from gun-friendly states like Texas can reach office at the state level so long as they respect gun rights, but once they set their sites on something like the White House, they need to toe the party line on gun control or they won’t have party backing at the national level.

TMD, re: Switzerland, you’re getting confused between issue weapons and personal ones. Military-issue firearms are tracked, primarily to ensure that everybody who’s supposed to have one,
DOES have one. On retirement, the firearm is tweaked to semi-auto only, and given to the retiring soldier.

The reason they can’t open their sealed battle-packs of ammo is so that they’ll HAVE the ammo for use. For practice, target-shooting, and whatnot, they can buy all they want. Military ammo
for practice is subsidized.

Most cantons are shall-issue for carry permits. You do have to list a reason on the application to purchase a firearm, but as long as you don’t put down something like
“I want to terrorize people and shoot up kindergartens” for the reason, you’re generally ok.

If that doesn’t work, go to gapminder.org and click the “load gapminder world” button, then change the vertical axis to Social -> murder rate. That’s not gun murder rate, and I can’t vouch for their stats in terms of “reporting it as multiple suicide” or “corrupt cops getting away with murder” but it produces an interesting spread.

Angola and Cote d’Ivoire, kind of “way up there” but it’s not that surprising … but South Africa? Seriously, what the fuck, South Africa? What are you doing all the way out there on your own?

Chance the horizontal axis to Economy -> Poverty & Inequality -> Inequality Index and you get a different spread, with the widest rich-poor divide on the right and … South Africa? Again What is it with you guys?

Education -> Gender equality -> Ratio of young literate females to males is a good one. Compare that to life expectancy and you get an interestingly triangular spread. There’s a line from Niger through Pakistan and Morocco to Italy, and everyone else is below it. Jamaica, Liberia and Lesotho are … standing out a bit, there.

Not necessarily. See while on the whole the country is First World, some areas are as bad if not worse than many third world countries. The income disparity in the US in many areas leads to a high crime rate. Then there’s the cultural issues. Cultures are not integrating into the US culture, and maintain their regional/ethnic culture over the shared culture.

Soooo name another country that has the same level of cultural diversity, income disparity, a large porous border with a second world(almost third world) country, a heavy drug trade, areas where police used to completely ignore, that spawned gangs to protect the people in those areas, and founded on independence. Then compare the violence statistics.

Japan: Island nation. Somewhat homogenous culture.
UK: Islands. Somewhat isolated, with specific entry points which are controlled.
Australia: COMPLETELY surrounded by water, and a barrier reef. Good luck sneaking a whole bunch of weapons in across its border.

Does Canada have a massive illegal drug trade, and income disparity on par with the US? The gangs from LA started out as private citizens defending from criminals because white cops didn’t go into the black neighborhoods. Then the turf wars started… Much of our problems stem from either the drug trade, or gang violence.

You’ll have to be more specific. Thus far, the European nations with the greatest percentages of African/Caribbean decent are down near 10%. Obviously some countries have more German(say Germany) or Spanish(say Spain), or even Italian(like Italy), but they do not have the kind of cultural mix that the US has. Within most states in the US is the kind of cultural clash that no European country has.

Take away the astroturf games like the so-called grassroots organization(s) that sprung up (by magic!) out of Newtown and you wind up with a truly ugly truth when it comes to gun violence in this country: Most of it is gang-related, most of the gangs are in our inner cities, and our President, along with the rest of the so-called “mainstream media”, simply refuses to address any of it.”

sigh. she’s too old to hold the office. the four or eight year job aged anyone that has held it at an advanced rate. regardless of platform or agenda, it is unconscionable to expect someone of her age to experience that. see also: john mccain -> http://johnmccainissoold.wordpress.com/